Rachel Harris

2017-2018 Rising Voices Fellow Rachel Harris

Rachel Harris is a junior at Blind Brook High School in Rye Brook, New York. When she isn't reading, dancing, or watching Netflix, she is an assistant teacher at her local Hebrew School. She is also an active member in many clubs in her school, including Model UN and Peer Tutoring.

Blog Posts

March for Our Lives NYC

Rising From the Ashes

Rachel Harris

April 19th was a day of highs and lows. During the day, school was abuzz. Everyone was talking about the next day’s school walkout (planned in response to the school shooting in Parkland, Florida)–whether they were going to do it, what they thought the punishments might be, if they were going to be in our local newspaper…my phone was on fire with texts from the organizers’ group chat. We planned to meet that day after school. We sat in the conference room, excitedly discussing who was bringing what, and writing the post for the Facebook event. I went home, giddy and anxious. My leg bounced under my kitchen table while I worked on my homework, my trademark nervous habit. I worried that no one would show up, or that everyone would get in trouble and blame me, or that it would rain really hard. My foot bounced faster. My phone dinged, bringing me out of my reverie.

Topics: Activism, Schools
Rachel Harris with Grandparents and Brother

Lessons from Savta

Rachel Harris

I always knew my grandma was pretty cool. As soon as activism became something of interest to me, my mom started telling me stories about her experiences growing up with my grandmother. They never ate Domino’s because the owner had expressed strong anti-choice sentiments; they didn’t eat grapes to support Cesar Chavez; activism was simply ingrained in my mom’s life from a very young age — mostly because of her mom.

Rachel Brosnahan

The Marvelous Concept of Imperfection

Rachel Harris

My mother is an avid recommender. She sends me articles and book titles, offers topics to blog about—she even suggested I see Hamilton with my grandma when it first opened on Broadway (before it got super popular). Unfortunately, more often than not I just roll my eyes and ignore these recommendations (as us teenagers often do), and so I have yet to see Hamilton. In the spirit of not making the same mistake twice, I didn’t ignore her when she told me to watch The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel.

Topics: Feminism, Television
Black Lives Matter Logo

Kneeling to Take a Stand

Rachel Harris

I’ve never really distinguished between my feminist and activist identities. They’ve always been one and the same – my feminism inspires my activism, and thus they are not two distinct parts of me. As I’ve grown, I’ve gained more awareness about important social justice issues both inside and outside the feminist movement, one example being police brutality. 

Make America Great Again Hat

Picking Battles

Rachel Harris

Not to be dramatic, but my blood boils whenever I see someone in Trump paraphernalia. Luckily, this is rarely an issue for me. My area of New York is notoriously liberal (Hillary Clinton lives 15 minutes from my house!), and I rarely encounter anyone diametrically opposed to me. However, I’m reminded on occasion that my town isn’t always the liberal bubble I make it out to be. 

Golda Meir, March 1, 1973

Badass Bubbee

Rachel Harris

She’s a confusing character in the feminist narrative. A pioneer in her field, yet so disappointingly anti-feminist. How do you label her? Should she be viewed as a hero, a villain, an accidental role model? The life and career of Goldie Myerson, or Golda Meir as she’s more commonly known, begs these questions.

The Kotel at Night

When Identities Meet

Rachel Harris

The first moment it hit me that Israel was my new reality—that I would be spending the next four months with these sixty teens as part of the NFTY EIE program—was our first Shabbat together. 

How to cite this page

Jewish Women's Archive. "Rachel Harris." (Viewed on September 21, 2023) <https://jwa.org/blog/author/rachel-harris>.